THE  OPPORTUNITY 
FOR  RELIGION 

HARRY  F.  WARD 


F- 

^'     "'       1 

1 

BR 
479 
.W37 
1919 
1 

1 

i 

tihrary  of  t:he  t:heolo0ical  ^tminavy 

PRINCETON  .  NEW  JERSEY 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 
ROBERT  ELLIOTT  SPEER 

BR  479  .W37  1919 

Ward,  Harry  Frederick,  187: 

1966. 
The  opportunity  for  religic 
in  the  present  world 


THE  OPPORTUNITY 
FOR  RELIGION 


THE  OPPORTUNIT 
FOR  RELIGIO 


IN  THE 


PRESENT  WORLD  SITUATION 


BY 

HARRY  F.  WARD 


NEW  YORK 

THE  WOMANS  PRESS 

1919 


COPYRIGHT,  191  9,  BY 
HARRY  F.  WARD 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

1 7 

II 21 

ni 45 

IV 56 


THE  OPPORTUNITY 
FOR   RELIGION 

I 

Of  the  much  writing  impelled  by  the  Great 
War,  that  which  deals  directly  with  religion 
is  a  very  small  proportion.  Of  this,  by  far 
the  greater  part  is  concerned  with  the  prob- 
lem of  personal  faith  and  conduct,  or  with 
the  effect  of  the  war  upon  religion  and  the 
churches  in  the  days  to  come.  There  is 
another  phase  of  the  subject  that  calls  for 
consideration.  What  opportunity  does  the 
world  crisis  offer  for  religion  to  lead  human- 
ity into  a  better  way  of  living.?  The  answer 
to  that  question  should  point  the  path  of 
duty  for  the  religious  individual,  and  upon 
the  answer  which  the  churches  make  to  that 
inquiry  their  future  will  most  certainly  de- 
pend. 


8     OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

The  war  has  developed  the  demand  and 
opportunity  for  the  reconstruction  of  society. 
Practically  all  the  social  forces  are  now  massed 
in  a  mighty  struggle  to  determine  in  what 
kind  of  a  world  and  in  what  manner  hu- 
manity shall  live  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
Religion  is  one  of  these  forces.  How  is  it 
mobilized  and  to  what  end?  Is  there  any 
spiritual  imperative  that  religion  can  bring 
to  bear  upon  the  present  world  situation.'' 
Is  it  able  to  translate  its  ideals  into  collec- 
tive conduct,  to  give  content  to  the  duties 
it  has  been  teaching.?  These  are  the  ques- 
tions that  demand  an  answer,  for  the  final 
test  of  all  religions  is  in  the  field  of  social 
action.  By  what  they  have  to  contribute 
to  the  welfare  of  humanity,  is  their  ultimate 
worth  to  be  determined. 

Of  course  when  we  speak  of  religion,  it  is 
organized  religion  that  is  meant,  and  more 
particularly  the  leaders  of  organized  religion. 
The  term  "church"  is  not  adequate  for  our 
purpose.     It   needs   to   be   remembered   that 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR   RELIGION     9 

organized  religion  to-day  comprehends  not 
only  the  churches,  but  also  a  number  of 
other  agencies  for  religious  instruction  and 
propaganda.  It  needs  still  more  to  be  re- 
membered that  in  the  modern  world  there 
are  large  religious  forces,  actual  and  poten- 
tial, without  the  bounds  of  all  organized 
religion,  which  can  be  mobilized  and  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  present  situation  by  an  ad- 
equate religious  statesmanship.  Such  forces 
are  particularly  to  be  found  in  the  world  of 
labor. 

The  mind  of  the  race  is  beginning  to  see 
what  the  heart  of  mankind  has  long  felt  — 
that  there  is  no  hope  for  humanity  save  in 
the  working  out  of  world-democracy,  and 
world-democracy  will  never  be  developed 
unless  a  common  religious  dynamic  operates 
among  all  peoples,  of  which  humanity  shall 
become  increasingly  conscious  and  to  which 
it  shall  increasingly  yield  its  allegiance. 

A  unique  element  in  the  present  situation 
is  the  extent  to  which  mankind  is  conscious 


lo    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

that  an  hour  of  destiny  has  arrived.  The 
fateful  hours  of  the  past  were  not  known  to 
many  of  those  who  Hved  in  them.  They 
were  revealed  afterward  to  the  historian. 
But  the  people  of  to-day  have  eaten  plenti- 
fully of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  The  laws  of 
the  physical  universe,  the  history  of  the 
human  race,  the  causes  of  social  progress  and 
decay  —  these  are  all  an  open  book  before  this 
generation.  The  control  of  nature  and  of 
human  society  is  now  in  the  hands  of  the 
common  people  to  an  extent  unimagined 
by  even  the  leaders  of  the  past.  Not  blindly 
as  did  men  of  other  days  do  we  take  the 
road.     We  are  not  walking  in  darkness. 

The  knowledge  of  the  possibilities  that 
hang  upon  the  outcome  of  this  day  is  not 
merely  the  property  of  the  wise  men  of  the 
universities.  All  over  the  earth  the  plain 
people  are  taking  the  destiny  of  the  race  into 
their  hands.  This  issue  will  not  be  decided 
by  a  few  leaders  gambling  with  the  lives 
of    the    masses.     The    '* silent    masses'*    are 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION     ii 

everywhere  becoming  articulate.  The  voice 
of  the  weaker  and  more  backward  peoples  is 
heard.  Their  interests  are  now  to  be  con- 
sidered. The  Orient  takes  its  place  be- 
side the  Occident.  Japan  and  China  enter 
into  the  family  of  nations  with  power.  The 
common  people  of  India  get  unto  themselves 
self-government.  Never  before  have  so  many 
peoples  been  consciously  joined  together  in 
the  choosing  of  their  future.  It  is  indeed 
mankind  deciding  its  destiny. 

Yet  it  is  still  true  that  in  every  laud  large 
numbers  of  people  are  not  conscious  of  the 
issue  of  the  hour  and  many  more  are  only 
partially  enlightened  concerning  it.  These 
are  often  the  so-called  *' better  class"  of 
people.  In  this  fact  lies  one  opportunity 
and  duty  for  religion.  As  it  makes  a  man 
conscious  of  his  moral  choices,  so  must  it 
make  the  nations  conscious  of  the  results 
that  will  follow  their  decision.  Its  educa- 
tional and  preaching  processes  can  be  used 
to  that  end.     There  is  a  penalty  in  store  for 


12    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

the  priests  who  let  the  people  perish  for  lack 
of  knowledge,  who  suffer  them  to  be  led  as 
sheep  to  the  slaughter,  by  their  own  igno- 
rance and  prejudice,  the  wiles  of  selfish  lead- 
ers, and  the  influence  of  a  designing  press. 
The  fact  that  the  people  have  the  power  to 
decide  is  no  guarantee  that  they  will  make 
a  deliberate  decision.  Professor  George  A, 
Coe  has  pointed  out  the  difference  between 
the  action  of  a  crowd  and  of  a  deliberative 
group.  It  is  the  duty  of  religion  to  develop 
the  people  into  a  deliberative  group,  that 
they  may  decide  their  own  fate  and  the  fate 
of  the  future  intelligently,  with  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  the  whole  situation  and  of  all  the  issues 
involved  in  it. 

The  people  must  be  brought  to  see  life 
whole.  At  present  they  see  it  only  partially, 
and  usually  from  the  standpoint  of  self- 
interest.  One  of  the  tragedies  of  the  hour  is 
that  those  who  seek  human  welfare  honestly, 
see  only  one  side  of  it.  This  blinding  of 
vision    by    self-interest    has    determined    the 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    13 

policy  of  religious  and  labor  groups  which 
were  pledged  to  seek  the  good  of  all  humanity. 
How  much  has  their  action  been  determined 
or  will  it  be  determined  by  some  secret,  half- 
recognized  hope  of  advantage  to  themselves  ? 
How  much  is  their  point  of  view  determined 
by  the  environment  and  training  of  their  ' 
class  interests?  Religion  should  help  men  to 
rise  above  such  narrow  ground.  It  should 
give  them  knowledge  of  the  whole  situation 
and  lead  them  to  consider  the  interest  of  all. 
If  the  world  is  left  in  this  hour  of  emergency 
to  depend  upon  self-interest,  it  will  be  left  to 
the  mercy  of  an  unreliable  guide,  for  self- 
interest  generally  leads  only  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  immediate  needs  and  desires.  It  is 
always  difficult  to  see  the  larger  and  longer 
self-interest  of  following  the  ideal,  to  perceive 
the  good  that  comes  to  one's  self  by  seeking 
the  good  of  others.  Yet  to  get  men  and 
nations  to  seek  this  larger  self-interest,  to 
act  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  is  one  of  the 
special  functions  of  religion. 


14    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

If  mankind  is  to  make  an  intelligent  choice 
in  this  situation,  it  must  not  only  know  the 
consequences  of  its  decision,  it  must  not  only 
have  in  mind  the  interests  of  the  whole  of 
humanity;  it  must  also  see  clearly  the  nature 
of  the  choice  that  is  before  it.  It  must  know 
just  what  it  is  choosing.  The  question 
now  before  the  house  of  humanity  is  the 
prevention  of  war.  But  behind  war  is  the 
philosophy  of  the  state  that  needs  mili- 
tarism for  its  support,  and  behind  that  is  the 
social    system    out    of   which    war    emerges. 

The  ultimate  fact  behind  the  recent  world- 
conflict  is  that  the  work  life  of  the  world  is 
organized  around  the  spirit  of  greed  and 
conquest.  No  stable  and  enduring  peace 
can  be  created  without  reckoning  with  this 
fact.  If  mankind  would  save  itself  from 
wasting  death  by  a  continued  series  of  con- 
flicts, it  must  find  a  new  manner  of  living  in 
times  of  peace.  It  is  a  choice  not  simply 
between  two  principles  of  government,  but 
between  two  philosophies  of  life.     The  world 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION     15 

must  choose  between  life  organized  around 
the  principle  of  strife,  and  life  organized 
around  the  principle  of  good  will.  The  way 
out  of  war  and  its  horrors  is  not  by  paper 
pacts  merely,  but  by  the  creation  of  a  new 
world.  It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  new 
political  constitutions  or  of  new  forms  of 
social  organization;  it  is  also  a  question  of 
motives  and  organizing  principle.  Shall  civ- 
ilization seek  property  or  life,  the  creation 
of  goods  or  the  development  of  humanity  .f' 
Shall  its  organizing  principle  be  strife  or 
love,  service  or  exploitation,  the  right  of 
the  strong,  as  individuals  and  a  class,  to 
rule,  or  the  duty  of  the  strong  to  serve  ? 

The  choice  now  is  between  the  religion  of 
war  and  the  religion  of  peace.  The  religion 
of  war  is  glorious.  It  calls  out  all  the  ener- 
gies of  life  in  supreme  moments  of  conflict. 
But  it  hurts  and  destroys.  It  is  the  religion 
of  aristocracy.  It  makes  supermen,  who  live 
in  palaces.  And  they  have  many  servants 
all  over  the  earth,  who  do  not  live  in  palaces. 


i6    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

The  religion  of  love  is  more  glorious.  It  also 
requires  courage,  endurance,  sacrifice.  It 
calls  out  all  the  energies  of  life  in  a  continu- 
ous conflict  with  nature  and  with  evil,  in  a 
sustained  career  of  service.  It  does  not  hurt 
or  destroy,  it  heals  and  renews.  It  is  the 
religion  of  democracy.  It  makes  not  lords 
but  freemen,  who  choose  to  be  "suffering 
servants''  and  who  live  not  in  palaces,  but  in 
carpenter  shops.  It  develops  a  society  of 
producers  cooperating  together  in  the  pro- 
duction of  economic  goods  and  using  them 
for  the  development  of  all  the  higher  values 
of  life,  not  for  a  chosen  few,  but  for  all  the 
people. 

The  tendency  of  our  times  is  to  be  content 
with  the  mere  mechanics  of  change.  Is  re- 
ligion at  fault?  Then  let  us  see  what  is  the 
matter  with  the  churches.  Let  us  get  feder- 
ation instead  of  competition;  but  that  fed- 
eration, having  the  same  inadequate  forms 
of  religious  expression,  brings  yet  no  new 
note  into  the  spiritual  life.     In  a  day  when 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION     17 

the  present  world-order  is  proving  inade- 
quate for  both  the  practical  needs  and  the 
spiritual  desires  of  man,  those  of  us  who  are 
Christians  may  well  remember  that  weighty- 
word  of  Chesterton  that  ''the  characteristic 
demand  of  Christianity  is  for  a  new  world." 
To  make  that  new  world,  religion  must  now 
challenge  mankind.  But  if  there  is  to  be  a 
new  world,  then  religion,  too,  must  have  new 
forms  of  expression. 

The  need  for  a  new  world  is  a  challenge  to 
the  will  of  man,  and  religion  always  makes  its 
central  appeal  to  the  will.  Religious  workers 
in  our  training  camps  remarked  upon  the 
fact  that  the  outstanding  characteristic  of 
the  majority  of  the  men  was  the  lack  of  any 
definite  or  conscious  purpose.  They  were 
living,  and  apparently  were  going  to  fight, 
without  any  aim.  This  fact  is  a  revelation 
of  the  nature  of  our  industrial  civilization. 
Its  largest  conscious  motive  being  the  mere 
production  of  goods,  it  leaves  the  mass  of 
mankind  with  nothing  to  do  and  no  motive 


1 8    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

in  life  but  to  make  or  earn  money  and  then 
to  spend  it.  It  is  the  business  of  rehgion 
to  give  Hfe  an  aim,  to  fasten  its  eyes  upon  a 
high  goal,  and  then  to  develop  the  will  to 
hold  the  lagging  feet  in  the  path  that  leads 
thither.  In  a  time  when  the  nations  who  sit 
in  darkness  are  seeking  for  light,  when  the 
peoples  of  the  earth  are  treading  together  the 
wine-press  of  sorrow  and  suffering  and  cannot 
see  the  way  out,  it  should  be  the  distinction 
of  religion  to  call  the  world  to  a  great  pur- 
pose. 

One  of  the  perils  of  the  hour  is  that  religious 
leaders  should  uncritically  assume  that  such 
democratic  gains  have  already  come  out  of 
the  war,  that  it  will  inevitably  become  a 
great  instrument  of  social  progress.  But 
whatever  gains  have  been  achieved  in  the 
national  control  of  industry,  and  in  the 
increase  of  collective  action,  can  easily  be 
used  for  the  strengthening  of  militarism.  Or 
they  can  become  the  tools  of  a  people  seek- 
ing   nothing    higher    than    the    increase    of 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR  RELIGION  19 
material  goods.  The  social  gains  of  war 
time  have  yet  to  become  the  possessions  of 
all  the  people,  to  be  dedicated  to  the  spiritual 
advancement  of  the  whole  race. 

To  make  the  choice  that  will  lift  humanity 
to  new  heights  of  living  requires  a  great  effort 
of  the  collective  will.  Before  a  new  world 
can  be  organized  mankind  must  passionately 
long  for  it,  must  definitely  set  its  will  to 
achieve  it.  Our  later  philosophers  have 
pointed  out  that  mankind,  having  the  in- 
tellectual and  mechanical  tools  of  progress, 
yet  lacks  the  desire  and  the  will  to  create  a 
better  way  of  living.  It  is  the  business  of 
religion  in  this  day  of  opportunity  to  develop 
and  guide  the  creative  will  of  mankind  to 
the  shaping  of  a  better  form  of  society. 

One  of  the  deepest  spiritual  facts  of  the 
present  hour  is  the  growing  apprehension  of  a 
new  world-order.  It  seems  almost  within 
our  grasp,  yet  somehow  eludes  our  eager  out- 
stretched hands.  It  is  the  hour  of  travail 
for  mankind.     A  new  world  is  struggling  to 


20    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

come  forth  and  the  old  order  is  holding  it 
back.  It  is  an  hour  of  torturing  uncer- 
tainty, but  the  hour  of  a  great  hope.  Every- 
where is  the  portent  of  new  things,  the 
universal  expectation  of  a  great  emancipa- 
tion that  has  ever  marked  the  beginning  of  a 
religious  era. 

The  spirit  of  creation  broods  again,  this 
time  above  the  chaos  of  human  relations. 
In  the  social  unrest  of  the  last  generation 
and  now  in  this  world-conflict,  there  is  more 
than  a  human  struggle.  The  eternal  Power 
is  striving  in  and  with  us  to  bring  order  out 
of  the  anarchy  of  our  political  and  economic 
affairs,  to  accomplish  the  divine  dream  of 
unity  in  this  most  difficult  of  all  spheres. 
In  this  great  hour  can  religion  bring  together 
the  will  of  man  and  the  will  of  God  in  a 
common  creative  effort?  Is  it  possible  to  ex- 
perience a  collective  incarnation.^ 


II 

It  is  significant  that  almost  every  one  who 
writes  about  religion  in  the  present  situa- 
tion laments  sectarian  divisions  and  de- 
sires more  unity.  This  is  a  reflection  of  the 
world-effort  toward  a  larger  degree  of  united 
action.  It  is  of  a  piece  with  the  movement 
toward  political  federation  and  international 
control.  The  movement  for  religious  co- 
operation contains  the  possibilities  of  a  much 
larger  service  from  religion  to  humanity,  but 
it  must  face  the  question  of  the  purpose  and 
end  for  which  the  churches  are  to  be  feder- 
ated or  unified,  it  must  recognize  that  present 
forms  of  religious  expression  have  failed  to 
satisfy  so  many  of  those  who  seek  truth  at 
one  end  of  society  and  of  those  who  struggle 
for  social  justice  at  the  other  end.  Religion 
must  reckon  with  the  fact  that  the  awakening 
working  class  in  all  the  industrial  nations  has 


22    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

weighed  our  present  civilization  in  the  bal- 
ance and  found  it  wanting.  They  have 
condemned  it  not  simply  because  it  has  failed 
to  provide  them  with  the  necessary  goods  for 
the  development  of  life,  after  they  have 
labored  to  the  utmost  of  their  energy,  but 
because  it  has  thwarted  their  sense  of  justice, 
and  denied  them  the  satisfaction  of  their 
longing  after  brotherhood.  They  have  con- 
demned it  then  on  moral  and  spiritual 
grounds.  They  are  bent  upon  the  making 
of  a  new  civilization.  They  will  have  no 
use  for  any  kind  of  religion  which  does  not 
lead  them  in  that  endeavor,  which  condones 
or  sustains  the  present  order.  If  religion 
is  to  have  any  leadership  in  the  future,  if  it  is 
to  meet  the  heart-hunger  of  the  masses,  it 
must  show  them  a  new  manner  of  life. 

In  such  an  undertaking,  the  search  for 
unity  in  religion  must  go  farther  afield. 
From  the  achievement  of  religious  coopera- 
tion, it  must  proceed  to  develop  cooperative 
religion.     It  must  discover  the  common  ele- 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    23 

ment  in  all  religions.  It  must  emphasize 
those  universal  aspirations  and  ideals  which 
will  stimulate  the  joint  undertaking  for  a 
better  world.  It  must  provide  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  world-democracy  can  grow. 
There  is  need  not  only  to  mass  the  common 
spiritual  resources  of  mankind  but  also  to 
develop  them  to  their  maximum  capacity. 
As  the  fierce  test  of  war  has  demanded  all  the 
noble  qualities  of  man,  so  the  task  of  recon- 
struction, the  necessity  of  creating  a  new 
world-order,  will  require  all  the  spiritual 
capacities  of  the  race.  To  raise  such  ca- 
pacities to  their  highest  possible  power  at  this 
present  moment  is  the  contribution  to  the 
common  undertaking  demanded  of  religion. 
The  essential  elements  of  religion  were 
stated  long  ago  in  classic  form:  "Now 
abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  these  three;  and 
the  greatest  of  these  is  love."  What  de- 
mands, then,  does  the  adventure  that  now 
lies  before  mankind  make  upon  these,  its 
fundamental  spiritual  resources.? 


24    OPPORTUNITY   FOR  RELIGION 

Mankind  lives  by  faith.  No  step  forward 
in  life,  individual  or  collective,  is  ever  taken 
without  it.  The  will  to  believe  is  also  the 
will  to  create.  The  faith  that  cries,  "It 
shall  be  done,"  actually  removes  mountains, 
achieves  the  impossible.  Such  faith  is  the 
indispensable  condition  of  progress,  because 
it  leads  men  to  attempt  the  unprecedented, 
to  try  the  thing  for  which  there  is  no  proof, 
to  dare  the  thing  which  never  has  been 
done.  Donald  Hankey  found  in  the  trenches 
that  faith  was  "betting  one's  life  that  there  is 
a  God."  This  is  exactly  the  quality  that 
mankind  needs  for  the  task  that  lies  before  it. 
To  achieve  their  need  and  their  desire,  the 
nations  must  risk  their  lives  on  the  chance 
that  the  universe  is  with  them,  that  the 
eternal  order  of  things  is  justice  and  love. 
It  is  both  the  necessity  and  the  desire  of 
mankind  to  organize  a  world  without  arms, 
to  organize  industry  within  and  between  na- 
tions for  the  service  of  human  need  and  not 
for   the   making   of  gain   for   the    people   of 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR   RELIGION    25 

power;  and  such  a  world  has  never  yet  ex- 
isted. Already  concrete  plans  to  this  end 
have  been  drafted.  They  are  being  soberly 
considered  by  responsible  authorities,  but  it 
is  something  which  never  has  been  done  and 
it  will  not  be  done  without  a  great  wave  of 
faith  throughout  the  world.  The  beginnings 
of  a  new  order  of  life  for  mankind  depend 
absolutely  upon  the  generation  of  sufficient 
faith  to  make  it  possible  to  risk  the  first 
steps.  It  is  always  the  peculiar  duty  of  re- 
ligion to  develop  the  faith  by  which  the 
work  of  the  world  gets  accomplished.  In 
such  an  emergency,  when  new  reserves  of 
faith  are  required,  what  a  challenge  comes 
then  to  religion! 

Yet  the  war  has  struck  heavy  blows  at 
faith.  Facing  the  hard  facts  of  conflict, 
the  bitter  evidence  of  the  ambitions,  the 
jealousies,  the  self-will  of  classes  and  nations, 
how  many  among  us  have  less  faith  in  hu- 
manity than  before  the  war.?  How  many 
of  those  who,  when  the  war  broke  out,  said 


26    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

confidently,  ''This  will  be  the  last,"  are 
now  saying,  ''Wars  must  always  be,"  are 
urging  their  nation  to  prepare  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  war,  are  assuming  the  present 
order  of  things  as  eternal,  are  repeating  the 
vapid  fallacy  that  "human  nature  cannot 
be  changed,"  are  evidencing  a  belief  in  the 
total  depravity  of  mankind  which  they  would 
indignantly  reject  if  it  were  asserted  con- 
cerning their  own  individual  natures?  How 
many  have  less  confidence  that  the  nations 
of  the  earth  are  amenable  to  reason  and 
good  will  than  they  had  before  they  en- 
countered the  hard  reality  of  war?  Yet 
the  construction  of  an  international  and 
supra-national  organization  that  shall  order 
a  new  way  of  living  for  the  world  must  be 
based  upon  mutual  trust  and  good  will.  It 
requires  more  faith  between  men  than  there 
was  before  the  war  began  and  very  much 
more  than  now  exists. 

This  does  not  mean  faith  in  a  fool's  para- 
dise or  faith  in  a   kind  of  humanity  which 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR  RELIGION  27 
does  not  yet  exist,  but  to  retain  sanity  and 
clarity  of  judgment  there  must  be  faith  in 
the  ultimate  possibilities  of  mankind,  in 
the  potential  goodness  even  of  enemies.  It 
is  because  we  have  not  faith  in  each  other  and 
therefore  have  not  faith  in  God  that  we  con- 
tinue armaments  and  competitive  industrial- 
ism. 

When  religion  addresses  itself  to  the  task 
of  generating  a  faith  adequate  for  the  recon- 
struction of  the  world,  it  will  face  a  wide- 
spread indifference.  One  of  the  inevitable 
consequences  of  the  tremendous  drain  upon 
the  energies  of  life  by  the  recent  struggle  is 
the  exhaustion  of  idealism.  The  forces  of 
religion  will  have  all  that  they  can  do  to 
prevent  a  dull  and  deadly  period  of  material- 
ism, such  as  followed  our  own  Civil  War. 
The  only  hope  is  that  they  should  now  pro- 
ceed to  develop  the  unrealized  spiritual  re- 
serves of  those  who  are  not  exhausted  by  the 
actual  conflict. 

Many  of  the  men  who  went  to  the  front 


28    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

found  their  better  selves.  They  developed 
unrealized  capacities.  They  know  now  what 
they  can  do  in  the  face  of  death  and  the 
impossible.  How  shall  the  men  who  stayed 
at  home  be  made  to  believe  also  in  their 
better  selves  and  in  the  possibilities  of  hu- 
manity.^ As  the  men  in  the  trenches  have 
come  to  feel  the  pull  of  comradeship  and  to 
know  the  crowd  urge  that  calls  faint-hearted 
men  over  the  top  to  die  gloriously,  so  must 
the  people  who  have  never  felt  the  terrible 
uplifting  enthusiasm  of  battle  be  led  to  act 
together  upon  their  faith,  until  they  also 
have  discovered  the  powers  that  are  within 
them  and  can  apply  to  the  making  of  a  new 
world  the  same  unrealized  resources  of  ideal- 
ism which  have  developed  the  heroism  of 
the  battle-field.  Theirs  it  is  to  live  to  create 
the  new  world  for  which  other  men  have 
died.  For  this  more  sustained  endeavor  they 
will  need  even  a  greater  faith  than  that 
which  inspires  men  deliberately  to  hazard 
their  lives  for  an  ideal. 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    29 

Jesus  lived  and  died  by  a  faith  in  the 
ultimate  supremacy  of  spiritual  forces.  He 
risked  his  life  on  the  hypothesis  that  they 
would  prove  stronger  than  all  the  mailed 
might  of  the  Roman  Empire.  In  what  does 
the  majority  of  mankind  trust  to-day?  In 
the  power  of  the  spiritual  forces  of  love  and 
service  or  in  the  power  of  hard  facts,  of 
money  and  munitions.^  It  is  a  question  of 
relative  values.  In  which  will  we  trust  as 
the  controlling  forces  in  the  organization  of 
life.? 

Religion  is  challenged  to  make  mankind 
to-day  believe  in  itself  and  in  God  as  it  never 
has  done  before  in  its  history.  Otherwise  its 
faltering  feet  may  turn  down  the  path  that 
leads  to  destruction.  If  religion  folds  its 
hands  and  preaches  the  counsel  of  despair,  if 
it  does  but  echo  the  voice  of  the  market- 
place, crying  that  the  ideals  of  humanity  and 
the  laws  of  God  are  both  unrealizable,  then 
indeed  has  the  day  of  death  begun  to  dawn 
for  the  peoples  of  the  earth.     The  supreme 


30    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

tragedy  of  a  community  or  a  nation  is  when 
its  religion  is  merely  the  defender  of  the 
existing  order,  when  the  only  God  that  the 
people  are  called  to  worship  is  the  "God  of 
things  as  they  are."  Life  moves  forward 
only  when  religion  proclaims  the  things  that 
ought  to  be  and  challenges  the  will  of  the 
people  to  make  them  be.  If  the  collective 
will  of  mankind  is  now  to  be  directed  to  the 
making  of  a  new  .world,  all  the  teaching 
agencies  of  religion  must  continually  pro- 
claim the  vision  of  "a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth."  If  now  this  should  be  made  con- 
crete in  terms  of  disarmament  and  world- 
wide economic  cooperation,  the  nations  would 
soon  come  to  believe  these  measures  possible. 
If  the  people  can  be  made  to  see,  they  will 
rise  and  follow  the  vision. 

To  make  faith  effective  there  must  be 
added  to  it  —  hope.  Hope  brings  faith  down 
to  the  ground.  It  possesses  insistency  and 
immediacy.  It  looks  to  the  near  accomplish- 
ment of  that  which  faith   leads  the  will  to 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    31 

attempt.  It  believes  not  simply  that  the 
Kingdom  of  God  will  come  sometime  and 
somewhere,  but  that  it  will  come  even  upon 
the  earth  as  in  heaven  and  that  its  beginning 
will  be  now.  It  believes  that  a  different 
social  order  is  not  only  possible,  but  is  within 
reach. 

Loss  of  hope  is  one  of  the  inevitable  ac- 
companiments of  war,  for  hope  belongs  with 
the  vitality  of  youth,  and  the  world  is  now 
war-weary  and  old.  An  American  student 
at  the  French  front  commented  upon  the  fact 
that  the  French  soldiers  are  prematurely 
aged.  "They  have  lost  their  youth,"  he 
says;  ''they  sit  like  old  men  and  talk  con- 
stantly of  the  good  days  they  have  seen  in 
the  past."  The  world  faces  the  task  of 
reconstruction  with  much  of  its  youth  gone 
and  with  much  that  remains  prematurely 
exhausted  and  aged.  It  is  a  less  hopeful 
world;  will  it  be  a  less  moral,  a  less  idealistic 
world.?  If  our  civilization  is  not  to  become 
prematurely  impotent,  the  springs  of  youth 


32    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

and  hope  must  be  restored.  To  those  of 
middle  age  and  past,  Bertrand  Russell  brings 
a  great  word  concerning  "the  young  men 
who  have  died  through  our  fear  of  life.  .  .  . 
Their  very  ghosts  have  more  life  than  we. 
.  .  .  Out  of  their  ghosts  must  come  life  and  it 
is  we  whom  they  must  vivify."  The  genera- 
tion now  coming  to  manhood  must  be  given 
more  than  the  natural  hope  of  youth.  "It 
is  necessary  to  create  a  new  hope;  .  .  .  only 
a  supreme  fire  of  thought  and  spirit  can 
save  future  generations  from  the  death  that 
has  befallen  the  generation  we  knew  and 
loved." ' 

One  of  the  outstanding  qualities  of  the 
Christian  religion  is  its  perennial  youthful- 
ness  and  hope.  It  refuses  to  despair  before 
the  entrenchments  of  evil,  no  matter  how 
strong  they  be.  It  shouts  its  triumph  in 
the  very  face  of  death.  Christianity  has  a 
social  gospel,  and  the  social  gospel  refuses  to 
acquiesce  in  the  triumph  of  evil  upon  the 
'  Russell,  "Why  Men  Fight." 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    33 

earth;  it  believes  that  humanity  can  and  will 
go  on  to  perfection;  it  insists  that  the  ideals 
and  principles  of  Jesus  which  express  and 
identify  the  ideals  and  aspirations  of  hu- 
manity and  the  eternal  purposes  of  God  shall 
yet  be  embodied  in  human  living. 

One  of  the  continually  recurring  tenden- 
cies of  religion  is  to  transfer  its  faith  to  the 
hereafter.  When  evil  has  seized  control  of 
this  present  world,  then  the  people  of  re- 
ligion look  for  some  future  deliverance.  So 
Israel,  when  great  heathen  powers  were  grind- 
ing her  between  their  iron  jaws,  transferred 
her  religious  hope  from  the  present  to  the 
hereafter.  So  the  early  Christians,  sup- 
pressed by  imperial  Rome,  looked  away  from 
the  pomp  and  power  of  the  scarlet  woman 
upon  the  seven  hills  to  the  Christ  coming 
from  the  clouds  in  glory  to  set  up  his  reign 
upon  the  earth.  The  same  tendency  appears 
in  this  present  time.  In  the  presence  of  sin 
so  vast,  calamity  so  overwhelming,  as  this 
world-war,  multitudes  of  Christians  are  tak- 


34    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

ing  refuge  in  the  theory  that  the  world  is  evil 
and  must  therefore  either  be  destroyed  or 
purged  by  the  second  coming  of  Christ  to 
reign  in  power.  As  a  demonstration  of  faith 
in  the  presence  of  world-catastrophe  this  is 
magnificent,  but  it  is  not  religion.  It  aban- 
dons hope  for  the  redemption  of  an  evil 
world  at  the  very  time  when  the  largest 
steps  in  the  process  of  world-redemption  are 
within  reach,  if  only  the  faith  and  will  of 
man  can  be  joined  with  the  eternal  purpose 
and  power  of  God. 

The  duty  of  religion  in  a  time  like  this  is 
plainly  to  increase  the  hope  of  mankind. 
This  it  can  do  by  pointing  out  that  the 
present  situation  is  neither  fate  nor  destiny, 
but  the  consequence  of  the  ignorance  and 
selfishness  of  man,  the  result  of  the  teaching 
of  false  ideals  and  the  organization  of  life  on 
a  wrong  basis.  Religious  teaching  can  point 
out  the  responsibility  for  this  and  all  other 
wars  by  analyzing  their  causes.  It  can  en- 
courage humanity  to  hope  for  the  abolition 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    35 

of  war  by  showing  the  degree  of  control  over 
the  spirit  of  aggression  which  man  has  ac- 
quired through  long  years  of  social  advance. 
It  can  point  out  how  in  former  times  in- 
dividual men  continually  faced  each  other  in 
arms  and  suspicion  as  the  nations  now  do. 
It  can  show  the  progress  that  the  nations 
have  made  in  arranging  peaceful  methods 
to  settle  their  disputes.  It  can  show  the 
development  that  has  been  made  since  the 
war  began  in  the  joint  control  of  the  eco- 
nomic causes  of  war.  It  can  point  out  the 
spread  of  the  desire  and  determination  to 
make  an  end  of  this  com.mon  enemy  of  the 
race.  Lest  mankind  should  now  stop  short 
of  this  desired  goal  and  even  of  its  possible 
achievement  in  the  present  situation,  there 
must  be  a  concerted  effort  to  strengthen  the 
hope  of  men. 

There  remains  "the  greatest  of  these  — 
love."  Without  love,  faith  may  not  realize 
its  vision  nor  hope  its  purpose.  It  is  not 
only  **the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,"  but 


36    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

the  greatest  need  of  mankind  in  this  crisis. 
Jesus  revealed  a  God  of  love.  A  new  com- 
mandment He  gave  men,  that  they  should 
love  one  another.  This  was  to  be  the  sign  of 
God-likeness  and  in  the  doing  of  it  they 
were  to  find  fellowship  with  God.  He  pro- 
claimed love  as  the  welding  force  of  the  com- 
munity life  that  was  to  develop  around  his 
teaching.  He  taught  love  as  the  organizing 
principle  of  human  fellowship.  His  disci- 
ples were  to  concrete  it  in  service  to  one 
another,  and  this  was  to  distinguish  them 
from  the  Gentiles.  His  followers  have  long 
proclaimed  love  as  the  greatest  personal  vir- 
tue. They  have  striven  to  be  made  per- 
fect in  love.  It  is  now  time  for  them  to 
proclaim  and  develop  love  as  the  only  social 
force  sufficient  to  bind  humanity  together  in 
the  new  world-life  that  its  faith  and  hope 
are  seeking.  In  this  effort  they  will  be 
joined  by  a  great  company,  for  good  will  is 
the  talisman  of  all  modern  idealists  —  the 
force  in  which  they  put  their  trust. 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    37 

The  innate  capacity  of  mankind  to  love 
and  the  extent  to  which  the  passion  for 
brotherhood  has  gripped  the  heart  of  man- 
kind have  been  amply  shown  by  the  war. 
It  was  a  hard  war  to  make.  So  far  had 
good  will  between  the  nations  developed  that 
among  the  common  people  the  will  to  hate 
and  to  kill  had  to  be  cultivated  by  invented 
acts  of  aggression,  by  exhortations  of  preach- 
ers and  would-be  poets,  by  the  sight  and 
recital  of  atrocities  and  by  training  in  feroc- 
ity. This  manifest  reluctance  to  make  war 
is  not  because  the  battle  spirit  of  man  has 
atrophied  in  an  industrial  civilization.  The 
unsurpassed  endurance  and  heroism  in  the 
trenches  of  men  who  until  recently  had  never 
thought  of  war  as  a  possibility  is  evidence 
enough  to  support  the  contention  of  those 
who  maintain  that  the  struggle  of  civiliza- 
tion to  subdue  both  nature  and  the  barbaric 
instincts  of  mankind  will  retain  all  the  vir- 
tues that  lie  in  the  battle  spirit  of  the  race. 
It  is  difficult  to  make  war  to-day  because  the 


38    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

ancient  dream  of  shepherds  and  the  Holy 
Grail  of  the  wise  —  good  will  among  men 
—  has  become  a  modern  social  fact  of  the 
first  importance.  Alongside  the  latent  bar- 
barism brought  to  the  surface  by  this  war  must 
be  chronicled  a  desperate  effort  to  maintain 
good  will,  to  hold  on  to  the  spiritual  gains 
acquired  in  the  slow  ascent  of  man. 

Yet  the  common  stock  of  good  will  that 
is  the  great  social  inheritance  of  mankind 
has  been  sadly  impaired  by  the  recent  strug- 
gle. The  natural  recuperation  of  the  spirit 
of  good  will  among  the  fighting  men  after 
the  battle  is  over  is  one  of  the  marvels  of 
history,  even  as  the  recuperative  power  of 
the  physical  organism  when  wounded  is  one 
of  the  marvels  of  nature.  But  something 
more  will  be  needed  for  reconstruction  days 
than  natural  good  will.  There  will  be  needed 
greater  cooperative  capacity,  which  is  more 
than  the  ability  to  fraternize  or  to  worship 
together.  These  forms  of  association  pro- 
vide no  guarantee  against  the  repetition  of 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    39 

the  present  horror,  for  men  have  joined  in 
these  and  still  have  been  dragged  unwill- 
ingly into  war  to  kill  each  other.  What 
is  needed  to  make  good  will  effective  in 
social  cooperation  is  a  definite  discipline, 
both  of  teaching  and  of  practice,  and  this  it 
is  the  function  of  religion  to  develop. 

Effective  good  will  is  the  development  of 
the  social  process,  as  well  as  of  the  procla- 
mation of  an  ideal.  It  can  therefore  no 
more  be  conjured  out  of  the  air  for  the  great 
task  of  reconstruction  than  can  the  metal 
that  has  been  shot  into  the  soil  of  Europe 
or  the  lumber  that  has  been  splintered  in  the 
trenches.  There  is  a  long-continuing  proc- 
ess of  creation  behind  the  one  as  the  other. 
To  repair  the  breaches  the  war  has  made  in 
international  good  will  is  a  task  as  difficult 
as  knitting  together  the  broken  economic 
life  of  the  world.  Indeed,  the  two  under- 
takings are  interdependent.  In  this  task 
of  reconstruction  it  is  time  to  add  to  our 
regimen    of    conservation    of   economic    ma- 


40    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

terials  a  similar  effort  to  conserve  our  spiritual 
resources.  Unless  the  world  can  do  this,  it 
will  find  itself  spiritually  bankrupt,  in  its 
day  of  greatest  opportunity. 

The  loftiest  expression  of  good  will  is  the 
command  of  Jesus,  ''Love  your  enemies." 
This  teaching  is  the  climax  of  the  endeavor  of 
mankind  to  establish  brotherhood,  the  cul- 
mination of  a  slow  development  of  ethical 
standards.  Only  through  long  periods  of 
social  advance  did  men  learn  that  distrust 
and  hostility  toward  the  stranger  without  the 
gates  was  not  essential  to  loyalty  to  their 
own  group.  Slowly  did  they  discover  that 
the  wider  the  extension  of  mutual  aid,  the 
greater  its  benefits  to  all  concerned.  Finally 
they  sought  after  world-wide  brotherhood. 
But  this  goal  cannot  be  attained  without  the 
ability  to  deal  in  good  will  with  those  who 
are    aggressors    against    the    common    weal. 

This  cannot  be  done  by  assuming  or  re- 
fusing to  assume  certain  personal  relation- 
ships to  other  persons.     It  is  a  question  of 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    41 

the  relations  between  nations  and  groups  of 
nations.  To  find  out  how  to  love  one's 
enemies  becomes  a  matter  of  discovering  a 
policy  for  the  nation  that  shall  really  embody 
good  will  as  an  active  principle  and  leave  no 
abiding  enmity. 

To  develop  good  will  between  enemies,  to 
eliminate  the  bitterness  and  hate  of  war  time, 
the  essential  thing  is  a  common  purpose,  a 
policy  and  program  of  common  action.  Re- 
ligion approaches  this  undertaking  with  the 
advantage  that  it  already  has  under  its 
direction  people  who  had  a  common  purpose 
before  the  war.  One  of  the  great  spiritual 
tragedies  of  the  war  was  that  it  caused  the 
"brothers"  and  "comrades"  of  a  chosen 
fellowship  to  seek  each  others'  lives.  They 
had  and  still  have  a  common  religious  pur- 
pose, but  another  interest  separated  them 
from  their  common  purpose  and  from  each 
other.  It  was  the  need  and  demand  of  the 
state  that  did  this.  If  this  need  and  de- 
mand does  not  coincide  with  the  larger  good 


42    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

of  all  mankind,  to  seek  which  religion  has  been 
calling  into  a  common  fellowship  the  citizens 
of  different  states,  then  the  state  has  achieved 
a  stronger  moral  sovereignty  than  religion, 
and  religion  stands  defeated.  In  such  case, 
the  first  task  of  religion  is  to  recall  its  own 
adherents  to  the  common  fellowship  by  re- 
kindling their  loyalty  to  their  common  pur- 
pose. If  it  cannot  do  this,  how  can  it  ever 
teach  the  rest  of  the  world  to  "love  your 
enemies"? 

Ought  not  adherents  of  the  same  religion 
in  hostile  countries  to  inquire  whether  they 
have  a  common  interest  which  is  higher  than 
the  interest  that  separates  them.?  If  their 
religion  has  taught  them  that  God  must  be 
expressed  in  a  world-wide  life  of  brother- 
hood, must  they  not  continually  inquire  how 
much  their  national  aim  is  making  for  this 
larger  good,  and  thus  find  out  how  national 
pride  and  self-interest  are  obstructing  the 
vision  of  God.?  If  these  religious  groups 
would   thus   seek   together   after   their   com- 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    43 

mon  purpose,  would  they  not  find  a  com- 
mon way  for  their  nations  out  of  their  an- 
tagonism, and  thereby  develop  a  common 
force  for  reconstruction?  The  hope  of  ad- 
vance for  mankind  depends  upon  whether 
the  forces  of  good  will  possess  the  capacity  to 
organize  their  common  passion  for  brother- 
hood, to  develop  into  conscious  fraternity 
the  ** mutual  aid"  which  has  been  the  prin- 
cipal factor  in  social  evolution,  and  to  direct 
it  to  the  chosen  end  of  a  world-wide,  coopera- 
tive life. 

This  means  that  religion  must  call  its 
adherents  in  every  land  to  a  passionate 
loyalty  to  its  ideal  of  world-wide  brother- 
hood. In  war  time  the  state  achieves  na- 
tional solidarity  and  safety  by  calling  in- 
dividuals to  a  sacrificial  loyalty.  The  achieve- 
ment of  the  solidarity  of  mankind  requires 
the  continuous  expression  of  loyalty,  to  the 
point  of  sacrifice.  Herein  is  accomplished 
the  supreme  religious  expression  of  the  indi- 
vidual.    To  secure  this  abundant  life  of  sacri- 


44    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

ficial  loyalty  to  the  greatest  possible  cause 
is  the  compelling  duty  of  religion.  It  must 
ever  call  the  peoples  of  the  earth  to  follow 
at  any  cost  the  way  of  love,  which  is  the 
only  way  of  life. 


Ill 

Religion  has  also  a  duty  other  than 
developing  the  spiritual  resources  of  mankind. 
It  must  lead  them  to  expression.  It  is  faced 
with  the  necessity  of  deciding  what  policies 
of  national  and  international  action  will 
realize  its  faith,  embody  its  hope,  and  give 
concrete  expression  to  its  love.  In  this  hour 
of  choice,  when  humanity  stands  in  the 
valley  of  decision,  religion  must  express 
itself  concerning  the  next  steps  for  human- 
ity to  take  in  the  direction  of  the  ideals  which 
it  has  been  proclaiming.  It  must  teach 
mankind  not  simply  duty,  but  the  content 
of  duty. 

The  approach  to  this  concrete  expression 
of  religion  is  always  twofold.  It  involves 
both  measures  of  repression  against  evil 
and    constructive    measures    to    replace    evil 


46    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

with  good.  If  a  community  is  to  get  rid 
of  the  curse  of  alcohol,  there  must  be  both 
the  elimination  of  the  organized  saloon  and 
the  development  of  constructive  social  recrea- 
tion to  take  the  place  of  the  fellowship  that 
has  ever  gathered  around  the  drink  habit. 
So  will  it  be  in  the  world  situation.  The 
making  of  a  better  world  involves  the  destruc- 
tion of  giant  evils.  In  order  to  transfer  the 
heroic  religious  qualities  of  war  time  to  the 
slower  and  quieter  task  of  social  reconstruc- 
tion, that  task  must  be  shown  to  involve 
conflict.  It  must  involve  the  supreme  thrill 
of  the  shock  of  battle.  An  enemy  makes 
men  heroes.  The  necessity  of  resisting  idola- 
try, slavery,  the  liquor  traffic,  has  glorified 
very  ordinary  people.  One  of  the  duties 
of  religion  is  to  identify  and  reveal  the  forces 
of  evil,  in  order  that  mankind  may  know 
against  what  its  toil  and  heroism  should  really 
be  directed. 

The    spirit    of    antagonism    has    a    social 
value.     Animated   by   self-interest,   it   drives 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    47 

men  against  each  other.  Concentrated  upon 
a  common  foe,  it  binds  men  together.  In 
the  presence  of  a  common  enemy,  there 
develops  at  once  loyalty  to  a  common  cause 
and  capacity  for  common  action.  The  world 
of  labor  is  continually  divided  by  inter- 
necine conflicts.  There  are  jurisdictional 
strikes  between  different  trade  unions.  There 
is  perpetual  conflict  between  the  socialist, 
the  trade-unionist,  and  the  syndicalist.  Let 
some  dull-minded  and  overgreedy  capitalist, 
however,  launch  an  assault  upon  one  of  the 
fundamental  rights  and  liberties  of  labor  and 
at  once  they  are  united  against  the  common 
menace.  How  many  years  of  development 
in  the  ordinary  constructive  processes  of 
peace  would  it  have  taken  to  get  the  Allied 
Powers  to  cooperate,  as  they  did  under 
the  pressure  of  a  common  foe,  in  the  joint 
administration  of  their  economic  life.^  Could 
the  nations  but  come  to  see  that  poverty 
is  their  common  menace,  and  that  greed  is 
destroying  them  all  alike,  they  would  extend 


48    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

this  joint  administration  until  the  whole 
world  would  be  bound  together  in  a  common 
cooperative  life. 

The  two  great  forces  that  mankind  to- 
gether must  conquer  are  nature  and  evil. 
The  one,  man  must  conquer  for  the  means  of 
subsistence,  the  other  for  his  spiritual  de- 
velopment. In  the  present  circumstance,  the 
evil  that  is  in  the  world  and  in  man  has  been 
dramatically  personified  in  war.  War  is  the 
common  enemy. 

The  physical  horrors  of  war  are  the  lesser 
of  its  evils.  It  is  the  effect  of  war  upon  the 
souls  of  men  and  the  soul  of  the  world-or- 
ganism that  must  be  faced.  In  considering 
what  war  does  to  personality,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  personality  is  a  social  fact. 
The  most  serious  consequence  of  war  is  its 
assault  upon  the  growing  social  personality 
of  mankind,  in  which  alone  our  individual 
personalities  come  to  their  full  realization. 
In  the  present  state  of  the  world-life,  war  is 
indeed    fratricidal  —  not    simply    because    it 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    49 

requires  brothers  and  comrades,  pledged  to  a 
common  cause,  to  kill  each  other,  but  because 
it  turns  one  part  of  the  social  body  against 
the  other  part.  It  is  the  dread  disease,  the 
terrible  madness  that  causes  mankind  to 
devour  its  own  vitals. 

There  are  two  groups  of  proposals  before 
the  common  parliament  of  humanity,  look- 
ing toward  the  abolition  of  war  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  world-order.  One  comes  from 
intellectuals,  who  are  now  managing  the  af- 
fairs of  the  world.  They  are  planning  a 
League  of  Nations  to  adjust  the  disputes  of 
the  world  and  thus  to  develop  a  stable  and 
enduring  peace.  Some  of  them  make  dis- 
armament an  essential  feature  of  the  plan, 
but  more  do  not.  The  other  proposal  comes 
from  the  men  who  labor  with  their  hands. 
They  are  demanding  that  the  nations  shall  be 
disarmed  and  that  the  economic  life  of  the 
world  shall  be  reorganized  on  the  basis  of 
cooperation  instead  of  competition,  that  It 
shall  be  developed  in  friendship  and  mutual 


so    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

aid  instead  of  in  strife  and  war.  In  these 
proposals  there  are  two  great  central  facts 
around  which  the  mind  and  purpose  of 
humanity  needs  now  to  concentrate:  dis- 
armament and  economic  cooperation.  The 
first  steps  in  these  two  processes  must  now 
be  taken  if  the  world  is  to  learn  to  walk  in  a 
new  way  of  life.  It  is  for  or  against  these 
things  that  the  nations  must  now  choose. 

Religion  has  long  proclaimed  a  day  when 
the  sword  should  be  beaten  into  the  plow- 
share and  the  spear  into  the  pruning-hook. 
That  day  is  within  reach.  Weary  of  slaughter, 
fearful  of  its  disastrous  economic  conse- 
quences, conscious  of  the  burden  of  arma- 
ments upon  the  productive  energies  of 
humanity,  the  peoples  of  the  earth  are  look- 
ing for  a  way  of  disarmament.  When  the 
first  universal  measure  is  taken  to  that  end, 
the  death  warrant  of  war  is  sealed.  War  is 
collective  crime,  and  armaments  are  its  tools 
and  occasion.  They  do  not  make  war,  but 
they  provide   the   means   for  war  and   they 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    51 

make  it  inevitable.  An  ex-premier  of  Great 
Britain  feels  it  necessary  to  appeal  to  us  not 
to  repeat  the  fallacy  they  have  at  such  cost 
disproved  —  that  armaments  make  for  peace. 
The  English  Council  of  Workers  and  Sol- 
diers says:  "If  the  nations  are  not  loaded, 
they  cannot  explode."  Wilfully  to  continue 
armaments  is  to  continue  the  occasion  and 
incitement  to  international  crime.  It  is  as 
if  the  drunkard  had  power  to  abolish  the 
saloon  and  willed  to  continue  it.  Yet  there 
are  those  who  are  now  working  for  the  con- 
tinuance of  armaments;  some  from  the  mo- 
tive of  profit,  others  from  fear,  others  from 
a  limited  and  misguided  patriotism.  As- 
suming the  permanence  of  war,  they  are 
doing  their  best  to  make  its  continuance 
inevitable  by  working  for  policies  which 
will  increase  the  distrust  and  suspicion  of 
mankind.  At  a  time  when  faith  needs  to  be 
aroused  for  the  great  adventure  of  a  warless 
world  they  are  spreading  the  deadly  narcotic 
of  disbelief.     In  a  day  when  it  is  possible  for 


52    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

mankind  to  throw  off  its  back  the  burden  of 
mihtarism  they  are  transmitting  paralysis  of 
the  will.  In  this  day  of  supreme  oppor- 
tunity they  are  revealing  themselves  as 
traitors  to  the  commonwealth  of  man. 

If  the  world  does  not  get  disarmament, 
the  sacrifices  of  this  conflict  will  have  been 
in  vain.  Men  said  the  Napoleonic  wars 
were  to  be  the  last  of  war.  It  was  an  idle 
dream.  It  always  will  be  until  the  will  and 
purpose  of  mankind  is  united  to  achieve 
disarmament.  This  is  now  a  possible  ac- 
complishment. Unless  it  be  done,  mankind 
will  be  enslaved  to  the  economic  burden  of 
this  war.  Neither  the  forces  of  labor,  of 
intellect,  nor  of  religion  can  do  their  full 
work  for  the  world  if  they  must  carry  this 
handicap  in  the  future.  President  Wilson 
has  made  a  measure  of  disarmament  one  of 
his  war  aims.  In  timid,  hesitating  fashion 
some  of  the  statesmen  of  Europe  have  par- 
tially echoed  his  words.  ''We  hope,"  says 
one,  ''that  disarmament  will  be  included  in 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    53 

the  terms  of  peace/'  And  while  they  hope 
they  fear.  Just  before  his  death,  at  the 
front,  viewing  the  possibiHty  that  the  war 
may  be  settled  on  the  basis  of  trade,  leaving 
economic  competition  between  the  nations, 
Professor  T.  F.  Kettle  wrote:  "It  will  be  a 
victory  tainted  with  ambiguous  and  selfish 
ends.  History  will  write  of  us  that  we  began 
nobly  but  that  our  purpose  corrupted.  The 
great  war  for  freedom  will  not  indeed  have 
been  waged  in  vain,  that  is  already  decided, 
but  it  will  but  half  have  kept  its  promises. 
Blood  and  iron  will  have  been  once  more 
established  as  the  veritable  masters  of  men 
and  nothing  will  open  before  the  world  but 
a  vista  of  new  wars."  ^  The  one  sure  pre- 
vention of  this  disaster  is  to  secure  disarma- 
ment. Has  the  United  States,  the  youthful 
nation,  the  faith,  the  courage,  the  initiative 
to  lead  the  old  world  in  this  enterprise? 
What  leadership  has  its  religion  to  offer  in 
this  emergency? 

1  Kettle,  "The  Ways  of  War." 


54    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

To  achieve  disarmament  is  a  constructive 
task.  It  demands  new  methods  of  poHtical 
organization,  new  forms  of  deahng  with 
international  disorder.  It  is  the  task  of 
statesmanship  to  work  out  the  measures,  it 
is  the  duty  of  rehgion  to  demand  that  the 
process  shall  now  be  commenced.  It  is  the 
first  general  measure  around  which  the  inter- 
national forces  of  religion  can  rally  as  the 
common  shepherds  of  humanity.  If  all  re- 
ligious teaching  the  world  over  should  con- 
stantly expound  the  necessity  and  the  possi- 
bility of  universal  disarmament,  if  from 
every  pulpit,  in  every  Sunday-school,  in 
every  religious  paper,  this  demand  should  be 
persistently  reiterated,  would  not  the  world- 
will  presently  be  aroused  and  made  intelli- 
gent to  achieve  this  great  step  in  human 
progress.?  Disarmament  is  more  than  a  me- 
chanical measure.  It  leaves  untouched  the 
economic  causes  of  war,  the  deep-rooted 
battle  instinct  which  has  to  be  given  ex- 
pression, but  it  clears  the  way  for  these  under- 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION     55 

takings.  It  removes  the  incubus  of  fear  and 
suspicion  which  makes  love  and  cooperation 
impossible.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  great 
spiritual  purpose.  It  is  the  beginning  of  a 
new  way  of  life.  That  step  taken,  the 
world  would  not  long  consent  to  continue  its 
economic  life  on  the  basis  of  war;  its  impetus 
would  send  mankind  on  up  to  new  heights 
of  living.  The  removal  of  fear  will  lead  to  the 
extension  of  international  relationships  in 
every  field,  to  the  removal  of  all  barriers 
opposing  the  free  interchange  of  both  eco- 
nomic goods  and  intellectual  and  spiritual 
gains,  to  the  gradual  cooperative  control  of 
all  energies  and  resources  for  the  fullest 
possible  development  of  the  whole  of  man- 
kind. The  idealism  that  has  gone  into  a 
conflict  of  destruction  will  be  turned  into  a 
competitive  struggle  of  good  will  and  service 
for  the  common  good  of  humanity.  Un- 
known capacities  of  production  and  coopera- 
tion, undreamed  intellectual  powers  and  spirit- 
ual resources,  will  be  released. 


IV 

When  religion  attempts  the  abolition  of 
war,  it  will  find  that  it  must  get  back  of  the 
battle-field.  War  is  a  great  school-master, 
and  while  religion  has  been  busy  dealing  with 
things  of  the  past,  the  facts  of  the  present 
have  been  educating  mankind.  Many  of 
the  men  who  have  seen  reality  in  the  trenches 
have  gone  back  of  the  physical  conflict  to 
the  organization  of  the  spirit  of  the  war  in 
the  daily  life  of  man.  They  have  come  to 
know  that  we  have  a  social  system  organized 
on  the  principle  of  conflict,  within  which 
the  seeds  of  this  death  have  been  developing. 
They  have  come  to  see  that  what  they  en- 
dured in  the  trenches  they  have  long  sufi^ered 
on  the  battle-fields  of  industry  in  times  of 
peace  —  privation  and  pain,  wounds  and 
death.     Now    they    are    beginning    to    dis- 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION     57 

cover  the  cause  of  their  suffering  and  to  seek 
its  removal.  While  the  statesmen  are  talk- 
ing of  arbitration  to  settle  disputes  and  a 
League  of  Nations  to  Enforce  Peace,  the 
working  people  are  talking  about  the  removal 
of  the  economic  causes  of  war.  In  the  blaze 
of  a  world  conflagration  they  have  come  to 
see  that  back  of  war  is  the  great  fact  that  the 
everyday  productive  business  of  life  is  or- 
ganized on  the  basis  of  strife;  that  it  is  a  con- 
stant struggle  between  individuals,  between 
groups,  between  nations,  each  seeking  the 
rewards  of  victory  in  industrial  plunder,  in 
profit  and  education  and  luxury. 

If  religion  is  to  lead  the  common  assault  of 
humanity  against  war,  it  must  first  under- 
stand the  nature  of  war.  Long  ago  Adam 
Smith,  the  great  English  economist,  taught 
that  war  is  largely  due  to  the  crimes  of  trad- 
ers. A  general  of  the  United  States  Army 
said  to  a  gathering  of  financiers,  "You  make 
the  wars;  we  soldiers  only  end  them.'*  A 
recognized  English  authority  on  the  Balkan 


58    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

situation  insists  that  either  of  the  two  recent 
Balkan  wars  could  have  been  prevented  if 
the  French  bankers  had  been  forbidden  to 
finance  the  combatants !  ^  The  same  writer 
later  said,  regarding  the  overseas  projects  of 
financiers,  '*To  my  mind  militarism  is  in  the 
modern  world  the  conception  of  life  which 
thinks  such  adventure  legitimate,  and  organ- 
izes for  this.  The  worst  of  the  German  ex- 
tremists wanted  the  Belgian  coal  fields  and 
the  French  iron  fields;  ours  happen  to  want 
the  corn  and  cotton  lands  of  Mesopotamia."  ^ 
Those  who  would  destroy  war  must  come 
to  know  that  industrialism  has  been  organized 
around  the  same  principles  and  in  the  same 
form  as  militarism.  It  has  massed  large 
armies  of  workers  under  the  control  of  ab- 
solute commanders  who  brook  no  challenge 
to  their  imperious  will  and  suppress  dissent 
by  force.  It  has  been  accompanied  by  all 
the  consequences  of  war.     It  has  produced 

1  Brailsford,  "The  War  of  Steel  and  Gold." 

2  Brailsford,  The  Herald,  London,  May  9,  19 17. 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    59 

famine  and  pestilence.  It  has  accomplished 
a  vast  destruction  of  life.  Armies  of  cripples 
are  flung  off  from  its  advance.  It  strengthens 
all  the  old  causes  of  war,  and  constantly  de- 
velops new  occasions  of  conflict.  It  asserts 
the  right  of  the  strong  to  rule  and  makes  the 
weak  the  prey,  and  the  earth  the  booty,  of 
the  mighty.  It  develops  economic  imperial- 
ism in  which  the  great  nations  compete  for 
trade  routes,  undeveloped  resources,  the  finan- 
cial exploitation  of  weaker  peoples.  Its  policy 
of  *' peaceful  penetration"  by  foreign  invest- 
ment and  commercial  control  is  but  another 
term  for  ruthless,  aggressive  ambition,  is 
the  brutal  assertion  of  the  will  to  power  in 
the  economic  world,  and  is  the  constant 
provocation  to  strife.  With  its  external  ex- 
pansion constantly  leading  in  the  direction  of 
war,  industrialism  is  also  ever  impelled  in 
the  same  direction  as  a  diversion  and  a  means 
of  control  for  the  inevitable  social  unrest 
developed  within  the  nation  by  its  policies.^ 
1  Veblen,  "The  Nature  of  Peace" 


6o    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

If  there  is  to  be  a  peaceful  world,  the  spirit 
of  war  must  be  exorcised  from  economic  life. 

It  lies  within  the  province  of  religion  to 
make  the  people  understand  that  Mars  is 
to-day  a  two-faced  deity.  Seen  from  the 
front  by  admiring  worshipers  he  is  a  glorious 
figure  in  shining  armor,  clean  and  youthful, 
straight  and  compelling,  with  noble  counte- 
nance; but  on  the  other  side,  inseparably 
joined  to  this  fair  youth,  is  the  gross  and 
ugly  figure  of  aged  Mammon,  with  his  feet 
upon  the  neck  of  prostrate  womanhood, 
gripping  little  children  by  the  throat  with  his 
fat  hands.  To  destroy  Mars,  Mammon  also 
must  be  overthrown.  Here  indeed  is  a  war- 
fare for  religion.  As  Jesus  said,  ''Ye  cannot 
serve  God  and  Mammon.''  As  long  as  civili- 
zation is  organized  mainly  to  produce  goods, 
it  will  continue  in  destructive  strife.  When 
it  is  organized  to  produce  men  and  women, 
to  develop  the  spiritual  values  of  life,  it 
will  come  to  be  a  cooperation  in  mutual 
service. 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    6i 

Will  religion  accept  the  challenge  of  its 
mighty  foe  and  lead  humanity  against  the 
common  enemy?  There  came  a  day  when 
Jesus  must  needs  turn  aside  from  his  preaching 
and  teaching,  and  go  to  Jerusalem  to  join 
the  final  issue  with  the  chief  priests  and 
Pharisees  and  with  Pilate,  knowing  that  the 
Cross  was  the  end.  There  came  a  day  when 
Paul  must  cease  his  missionary  journeying, 
and  go  to  Rome,  ''not  knowing  what  shall 
befall  me  there,"  to  join  the  issue  with  the 
imperial  power  of  the  Caesars.  Has  the 
day  not  come  for  modern  religion  at  any  cost 
to  join  the  issue  with  the  rulers  of  our  civiliza- 
tion, to  call  the  hosts  of  humanity  to  hurl 
Mars  and  Mammon  from  their  throne,  to 
rid  the  earth  forever  of  the  curse  of  mili- 
tarism and  capitalistic  industrialism? 

Mars  and  Mammon  being  inseparably 
joined,  must  be  destroyed  together.  The 
beginning  of  disarmament  is  the  death-wound 
of  Mars.  The  beginning  of  economic  co- 
operation is  the  death-blow  of  Mammon.     A 


62    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

League  of  Nations  with  no  agreement  con- 
cerning their  economic  needs  would  leave 
untouched  the  roots  of  future  conflicts.  Or 
disarmament  may  mean  the  joining  of  the 
great  powers  together  in  a  compact  of 
benevolent  economic  imperialism  to  exploit 
together  the  weaker  peoples  and  divide  the 
booty,  with  some  measure  of  justice  between 
the  spoilers,  with  none  for  the  despoiled. 
For  them  there  would  be  only  a  little  kind- 
ness and  that  only  as  long  as  they  were 
docile. 

The  alternative  to  such  a  league  of  dis- 
honor is  a  world-wide  extension  of  the  co- 
operative principle.  The  Federal  Council  of 
Churches  of  Christ  in  America  has  declared 
for  "equal  rights  and  complete  justice  for  all 
men  in  all  stations  of  life."  This  needs  to  be 
applied  to  the  nations  and  races  of  the  earth 
to  the  uttermost  extent.  The  same  body 
has  also  approved  the  report  of  its  Social 
Service  Commission  declaring  for  "the  fullest 
possible  cooperative  control  of  both  industry 


OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION    63 

and  the  natural  resources  upon  which  In- 
dustry depends/'  This  principle  needs  also 
to  be  extended  to  the  economic  relations 
between  nations. 

If  religion  would  sweep  away  an  ancient 
evil,  it  must  replace  it  with  a  newer  good. 
If  arms  and  the  glory  of  war  are  to  be  abol- 
ished, humanity  must  be  brought  together  in 
a  constructive  fellowship  of  adventure  and 
heroism.  There  must  be  developed  "the 
moral  equivalent  of  war."  The  toil  and 
suffering  and  fellowship  of  the  battle  must 
be  replaced  by  the  toil  and  suffering  and 
fellowship  of  the  struggle  to  meet  the  daily 
needs  of  the  race.  Here  religion  will  find 
content  for  its  duties  and  realization  for  its 
ideals.  It  will  express  itself  in  such  prac- 
tical questions  of  statesmanship  as  the  in- 
ternationalizing of  trade  routes  and  water- 
ways, the  joint  control  of  the  distribution  of 
raw  materials.  A  religion  which  seeks  the 
spiritual  unity  of  the  race  must  recognize 
that  it  is  in  the  business  of  economic  pro- 


64    OPPORTUNITY   FOR   RELIGION 

duction  and  exchange  that  the  greatest  de- 
velopment of  cooperative  capacity  has  come 
to  mankind.  This  has  led  to  his  cooperative 
intellectual  and  spiritual  development.  The 
expansion  of  economic  cooperation  will  re- 
lease still  greater  capacities  for  mutual  ad- 
vance. Those  who  seek  to  impose  their  way 
of  life  upon  others  by  force  destroy  both 
themselves  and  others.  Those  who  join  to- 
gether to  share  their  mutual  capacities  for 
the  common  good  enlarge  both  their  own 
and  the  common  life.  The  principle  of  the 
cooperative  national  and  international  con- 
trol of  industry  has  gone  far  enough  and  been 
successful  enough  in  the  present  war  to  make 
practicable  its  further  extension. 

It  is  through  the  development  of  economic 
cooperation  that  the  world-family  will  solidify 
itself,  and  the  world-order  will  develop.  A 
league  of  peace  which  deals  only  with  po- 
litical questions  is  but  a  paper  pact.  The 
workers  of  the  world  have  gone  beyond 
the  intellectuals  in  that  they  propose  to  give 


OPPORTUNITY  FOR   RELIGION    65 

the  organized  supra-nation  some  task  at 
once  to  accomplish,  and  it  is  only  by  action 
that  organisms  develop.  Moreover,  in  this 
they  are  in  actual  tune  with  the  facts  and 
needs  of  to-day,  for  the  business  of  economic 
production  has  now  proceeded  far  beyond  the 
political  organization  of  mankind.  Politi- 
cally we  are  living  in  one  century  and 
economically  we  are  living  in  another.  The 
artificial  boundaries  of  the  states  do  not 
correspond  to  the  facts  of  economic  produc- 
tion and  exchange,  any  more  than  they 
correspond  to  the  ideal  of  fellowship  and 
the  capacity  for  its  enjoyment.  There  are 
to-day  no  independent  economic  units.  These 
absolute  sovereignties,  called  states,  which 
exist  in  political  philosophy  and  practice,  do 
not  exist  when  it  comes  to  the  interdependent, 
economic  life  of  the  world,  which  crosses  all 
frontiers.  Here  is  the  actual  beginning  of 
that  world-family  life  to  which  religion  seeks 
to  call  the  loyalty  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  nation.     An  organization  to  express  the 


66    OPPORTUNITY  FOR   RELIGION 

fact  of  this  growing  world-unity  will  find 
that  its  authority  rests  not  in  any  external 
power,  but  in  its  service  value  to  humanity. 
Just  as  the  nation  contributes  to  the  larger 
life  of  the  individual,  so  will  this  world-organ- 
ization contribute  to  the  larger  development 
of  the  nations  and  to  the  fullest  happiness 
and  expansion  of  mankind.  Is  the  pull  of 
self-interest  sufficient  to  draw  mankind  to 
its  accomplishment.^  Or  does  it  need  the 
passion  of  a  great  ideal  to  pull  the  world  up 
to  this  new  order  of  living,  even  as  the  pas- 
sion to  preserve  the  Union  was  finally  needed 
to  accomplish  the  final  overthrow  of  slavery .? 
Will  its  coming  wait  for  the  continuous 
proclamation  by  religion  of  the  ideal  of 
world-unity  as  the  very  expression  of  God, 
until  there  is  massed  for  its  accomplish- 
ment all  the  heart-hunger  for  the  Infinite, 
all  the  passion  for  brotherhood,  which  are 
but  different  aspects  of  "the  incurably  re- 
ligious nature"  of  all  mankind? 


DATE  DUE 

'-— 

, 

GAYLORD 

FRINTEDIN  USA. 

BW2515.W25 

The  opportunity  for  religion  in  tne 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1012  00017  0300 


